Initially it was for women who had no family. [Now]
its for people with families who want them to stay there, for families who
want to get rid of their daughters for any reason. Libyan attorney [name withheld], Tripoli, May 4, 2005

Our role is to change their personality.  Aisha Ramadan Ben Soufia, director of the Social
Welfare Home for Women, Tripoli, May 4, 2005

The General Secretary of Social Affairs supervises and
administers social rehabilitation facilities in Libya. According to an internal
bylaw of the General Secretary, the mandate of these facilities is to provide
housing for women who are vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct.36 While there
is no clear definition in the bylaw of how this is determined, the following
categories of women and girls are specified: raped adolescent girls;37 misled
adolescent girls whose decency was assaulted; women accused of prostitution
about whom the court did not make a decision; women abandoned by their families
because of illegal pregnancy; homeless women; and divorced women abandoned by
their families.38

The facilities are meant to serve two purposes: to protect
women and girls who have been threatened by their families; and to rehabilitate
women and girls deemed to have transgressed socially-accepted norms or Law No.
70 (1973) criminalizing extramarital sexual relations. According to article 1
of the bylaw, the facilities aim to guide them socially, psychologically and
religiously in order to correct their behavior and empower them to return to a
righteous family life and to integrate into society. There is no limit on the
length of time the government can hold women and girls in social rehabilitation
facilities.

She cant leave when she wants. We dont let them go
out in the street where there is no protection for them. It [the social
rehabilitation facility] is a type of protection for them. Everything is
provided for them. Mohammed Youssef al-Mahatrash, Head of Prosecutions, Tripoli, May 2, 2005

Women and girls are transferred into social rehabilitation
facilities by the office of the public prosecutor, which is normally notified
of cases by the police. Some women and girls report to the police voluntarily
out of fear that their families would attack them if they found out that they
had been sexually assaulted. Others are sent to the police by families no longer
willing to provide them with a home.

Libyas social rehabilitation system for women and girls
operates as an exception to article 4 of the penal code, which states that
deprivation of freedom should not take place outside the prison realm.39 The public
prosecution may place women who are in preventive custody and others who are
sentenced to punishments that deprive them of their freedom (those whose
freedom is monitored) in social rehabilitation facilities identified by the secretary
of social affairs with agreement of the General Peoples Committee for Public
Security.40
There is no mechanism for women and girls to appeal their transfer into these
facilities.

They just want us to be silent. They just want us to
keep quiet. A child detained in the Benghazi Home for Juvenile
Girls, April 23, 2005

Financing from the General Secretary of Social Affairs
social fund (sanduk al-iktimai) established the Benghazi Home for
Juvenile Girls in the 1980s. It is located in a larger compound housing people
with disabilities and juvenile males who have been convicted of crimes. It
houses girls (both Libyan and non-Libyan) below the age of 18. The director of
the facility described the usual admission process, involving girls who are
fearful for their safety should their families learn that they have had sex
(consensual or forced): Usually girls are afraid. They go to the police, who
send them to the public prosecutor, who transfers them into temporary
detention. If the father or family is sympathetic, they [the girls] can get a
pass to stay at home.41

When Human Rights Watch visited the facility in April 2005,
five girlsthree Libyans and two Egyptianswere detained, all aged sixteen and
seventeen. All of the girls had been tested for communicable diseases without
their consent,42
and four of them had been forced to undergo virginity examinations administered
by male forensic doctors.43
Three of the five girls told Human Rights Watch that they were victims of a
rape or an attempted rape. They were brought to the facility by families who no
longer wanted to provide them with housing.

Girls at the Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls, many of whom
are in fact victims of crimes and not perpetrators of them, are treated like
criminals. Once in the facility, they are detained indefinitely and require
permission from their fathers to leave. During their detention, they are
provided with no education except religious instruction from a sheikh who
visits the facility once a week to teach the Quran. Girls complained of
being hit or sent to solitary confinement if they talked back or misbehaved in
even the smallest way. The mandate of the facility allows the authorities to
hold girls in solitary confinement for up to seven days. However, staff at the
facility admitted to holding some girls for periods of two to three weeks and
showed us a record log of the days girls were held in isolation. The girls we
interviewed reported that staff sometimes handcuffed them while they were in
isolation. While the food they were provided was sufficient, they told Human
Rights Watch that personal hygiene supplies were inadequate. One girl said,
[t]hey give you soap and shampoo only once a month. They dont care if it runs
out.44
The girls are only allowed visitors with the permission of a prosecutor.

Mona Ahmed,45
has been detained in the Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls for over a year. She
became pregnant following a rape and was brought to the facility by her father.
While the family initially doubted that she had been raped, the rapist
eventually confessed. However, her father continues to prohibit her from
leaving until she agrees to give up her child, who is kept in the facility with
her. She told Human Rights Watch, the rapist confessed but my father is
complicating things. Only my father can give permission to release me. My
father will agree only if I give up the child so that he can marry me off to
his friend. She does not know whether she will ever be permitted to leave the
facility.

Nada Mounir, seventeen, was brought to the facility on April
21, 2005 after the death of a relative who tried to rape her. She attacked him
with a knife in self-defense, and he subsequently died of complications. She
told Human Rights Watch, [h]e tried to rape me but he didnt succeed. My
parents were in another house. He came from behind the house. He kissed me. He
had a knife. He pulled me down by my hair and said he was going to do it but I
took the knife and stabbed him. I told my mother about it. She took me to the
police station. They [the police] took me to the prosecutor who brought me
here.46
Her family refuses to visit her or agree to take custody of her. She does not
have a lawyer.

Although she served her time, shes here because her
parents dont want to take her, to protect her. Shes here so that she doesnt
get lost again. These women would be a threat to society otherwise. Said al-Shoft, public prosecutor, Tripoli, May 4, 2005

Human Rights Watch visited the Social Welfare Home (bayt
al-ijtimai) for adult women on May 4, 2005. Located on the outskirts of Tripoli in the town of Tajoura, this facility at the time of the visit housed sixteen
women (including one child47)
and has a maximum capacity of fifty. These women, many of whom have committed
no crime and others who have already served their sentence, are kept in locked
quarters indefinitely. They are detained because their families (most often
their fathers) are unwilling to take custody of them. When Human Rights Watch
spoke to the twelve women at the center that day, eleven said that they wanted
to leave. One had been there for eight years. One woman could not imagine
living alone and felt that staying in detention was her only hope for shelter.

Government officials allowed Human Rights Watch researchers
to interview privately several of the women held in the facility. However, one
of the women we interviewed said that the facility director had told her,
[t]his woman is coming from outside [of Libya]. You have to give her a good
picture of our society. She will not be able to find a solution for you
anyway. This type of pressure may have constrained the women we interviewed
from describing a full picture of their situation.

When asked why a family member is required to take custody
of an adult woman in order to be released, the general director of social
organizations told Human Rights Watch, [i]t is for her protection. If they
pick her up, its a form of protection for her . Sometimes we dont even allow
an uncle to take custody of her, if her father has not approved.48 While the
staff of the facility regularly contacts the womans family in an attempt to
reconcile them, the director of the Tajoura facility admitted that only half of
these women are ever picked up by their families.49

For many women, their only chance of extricating themselves
from the facility is through marriage, often to a stranger who approaches the
facility looking for a bride. According to one public prosecutor, so few
families agree to take custody of these women that [t]he only answer is
marriage. That is the only way to leave the [social rehabilitation] home.50 Aisha
Ramadan Ben Soufia, the director of the social home, described the marriage
process:

[A man comes to us and] asks to get married. We do our
research and ask him why hes coming here. We visit his home to make sure the
conditions are as he described. We verify his salary and qualifications . He
has to have a full-time job and housing. It is usually someone from outside of Tripoli. We tell them [the women] his qualifications and ask the girls if they want to
marry him.

The facility determines which women qualify for marriage
based on their moral character. The director of the Tajoura facility told Human
Rights Watch: We only marry the ones without problems, the ones of good
morals.51
According to Awatif al-Sherif, a social worker at the facility, [a]ll of them
get married in the end.52
According to the general director of social organizations in Tripoli, over the
past five years in social rehabilitation facilities in the capital, nineteen
girls were married.53
Two of the women held in the Social Welfare Home for Women in Tajoura at the
time of Human Rights Watchs visit were engaged.

When asked why men would choose to marry a women detained in
a social rehabilitation facility, the director said that the intentions vary
and that men usually approach the center because their neighbors were married
similarly, out of religious sympathy for the woman, and in order to get a
religious blessing [sawab].54
However, the head of prosecutions and one female public prosecutor described a
different rationale. The head of prosecutions told Human Rights Watch that
these centers were one of the cheap places for marriage.55 A public prosecutor went
on to say that there are no [pre-marriage] expenses. It is not the same
[process] as a woman with a family.56

The women whose families do not agree to take custody of
them and those who do not get married because they are ineligible according
to the criteria set by the center, or unwilling for any reason, are detained in
the facility indefinitely. Their days are spent cleaning the facility,
listening to religious lectures, and participating in computer training. Their
personal possessions, including radios and non-religious books, are
confiscated. They are only allowed to make phone calls to family members. All
of those calls are monitored.

Staff allow only those women deemed to be of good behavior
to workfor minimal payat a center for children located within the gates of
the compound. According to the center director, [a] woman who does not marry
can work in the childrens home [dar al-tifl] only if she has good
behavior. Behavior is the most important thing.57 The social worker
added, [w]e let the ones with good behavior work, the ones that dont raise
their voices, the ones that sleep quietly. We dont let the new ones work.58

Many of the women at this facility reported having been
raped. Nawal Ali, thirty-two, has been detained for eight years, seven of them
at the Tajoura facility. Her family forced her out of her home following a rape
by a relative. She explained:

After my fathers death in 1997, my mothers relative
came to me and whispered in my ear and said, [w]e should get married. I was
in high school and wasnt thinking about marriage. Then he started to use bad
language. He kept telling my mother that I was going out with boys One day he
went with me to buy school supplies. He took me to a place that Id never seen
before. It was rape. My mother said, [y]oure lying; he didnt do that; youve
been with men.59

She became pregnant and spent one year in the womens
section of the Zawiya Prison because the forensic doctor concluded that the
sexual relations were consensual. After serving her sentence, she was
transferred to the Tajoura facility with her infant daughter because her family
refused to take custody of her. Her daughter stayed in the neighboring facility
for children until she was reportedly given away for adoption without Nawals
notification or consent, in violation of the Libyan penal code60 and international human
rights law.61
She told Human Rights Watch: I went to visit her there one day, and they told
me that someone came to take her . They said a good family took her. I dont
know where she is now. 62

Another rape victim, Rana Mohammed, twenty, described the
reasons for her detention in the Social Welfare Home for Women in Tajoura:

Family problems brought me here. A man raped me on the
street on August 8, 2004. It was a frontal [vaginal] rape. He left me on the
street I went directly to the center in Tarhouna, because my brother would
kill me if he found out. I went directly from the center to the social welfare
home. The prosecutor called my parents. He told them my story. They visit me
but they wont officially receive [take custody of] me.63

She has been engaged for the past four months to a man who
owns a clothing store and who sought a wife at the center. She is not sure when
she will be married and thus be permitted to leave the facility. When asked why
she thought she was picked to marry, she said they chose me because Im not a
troublemaker.

Some women are detained simply at the whim of their parents.
Hala Mohsen, twenty-five, has been held in the Social Welfare Home for
two-and-a-half months. The prosecutors office ordered her detention after her
father (who had previously forced her out of her abusive home) demanded that
she return home. Although she is legally an adult and has committed no crime
under Libyan law, she will be detained until she agrees to return to her
fathers home or marry. She told Human Rights Watch:

My mother died in a car crash when I was two. My father
married a Moroccan woman. We didnt understand each other. We had lots of
problems. Shed hit and insult us. Eventually my father kicked me out. He gave
me a ticket to visit my relatives. I worked in a restaurant. I made clean
money. I didnt smoke or take drugs. A year later, my father came to pick me up
because people were talking. The prosecutor told me that I could either come
here [to the center] or go home with my father. They [the office of the
prosecutor] brought me here for no reason since I have an apartment and a job.64

Several of the women held in the Tajoura facility told Human
Rights Watch that they had gone there willingly in search of shelter after
their families evicted them from their homes. They had not had sexual
relations. One woman said, [m]y mother doesnt want me so I came here myself,
while another said. I told the prosecutor that I have no home, so they brought
me here. Instead of providing these women with shelter fitting for someone who
had committed no crime, the Libyan authorities locked them up.

The arbitrary nature of the detentions, as well as the
conditions, reportedly caused some women to try to escape. A social worker at
the Tajoura facility, who has worked there for ten years, denied that any woman
had ever tried to escape and said, [b]esides, even if they escape, people
bring them back.65
The detainees to whom Human Rights Watch spoke refuted this claim. They said
that in fact there had been escape attempts, although few were successful. One
of the detainees said that a woman had escaped a few years ago. She added,
[i]f we could escape, we would all leave.

[42]
Non-Libyan
girls with communicable diseases are deported. According to the director, a
Sudanese girl who was HIV-positive and an Egyptian girl with hepatitis had been
deported after they were tested at the facility. Human Rights Watch interview
with Fayza Khamis, director, Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls (dar al-
ahdath al-anath), Benghazi, April 23, 2005.

[43] One of
the girls did not undergo a virginity examination because she was detained for
theft and not a zina related offense or action.

[44] Human
Rights Watch interview with a girl detained in the Benghazi Home for Juvenile Girls [name withheld], Benghazi, April 23, 2005.

[45] The
names of all the women and girls whose cases are discussed in this report have
been changed to protect their privacy. Human Rights Watch interview with Mona
Ahmed (pseudonym), Benghazi, April 23, 2005.

[54] Human
Rights Watch interview with Aisha Ramadan Ben Soufia, director of the Social
Welfare Home for Women in Tajoura, Tripoli, May 4, 2005.

[55] Human Rights Watch interview with
Mohammed Youssef al-Mahatrash, chief prosecutor for Tripoli, Tripoli, May 2,
2005. It is customary in Libya for the groom to give the bride a dowry and pay
for their housing.

[57] Human
Rights Watch interview with Aisha Ramadan Ben Soufia, director of the Social
Welfare Home for Women in Tajoura, Tripoli, May 4, 2005.

[58] Human
Rights Watch interview with Awatif al-Sherif, social worker at the Social
Welfare Home for Women in Tajoura, Tripoli, May 4, 2005.

[59] Human
Rights Watch interview with Nawal Ali (pseudonym), Social Welfare Home for
Women in Tajoura, Tripoli, May 4, 2005.

[60]
Article 28 of Law No.47 (1975) states: The child is to remain with his mother
in the social rehabilitation house until he reaches 2 years of age, then he is
to be handed to his father or whoever is in charge of his custody. If the child
does not have relatives then the prison manager is to send a notice to the
concerned authority to undertake placing him in a child rehabilitation
facility. The mother should be notified and allowed to see him regularly
according to the bylaw.

[61]Article
9 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides that states
parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her
parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to
judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures,
that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child. It
further provides that in any such proceedings, interested parties shall be
given an opportunity to participate in the proceedings and make their views
known. In addition, it requires that states parties respect the right of the
child who is separated from one or both parents to maintain personal relations
and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is
contrary to the childs best interests. See CRC article 9 (1), (2) and (3).

[62] Human
Rights Watch interview with Nawal Ali (pseudonym), Social Welfare Home for
Women in Tajoura, Tripoli, May 4, 2005.

[63] Human
Rights Watch interview with Rana Mohammed (pseudonym), Social Welfare Home for
Women in Tajoura, Tripoli, May 4, 2005.

[64] Human
Rights Watch interview with Hala Mohsen (pseudonym), Social Welfare Home for
Women in Tajoura, Tripoli, May 4, 2005.

[65] Human
Rights Watch interview with Awatif al-Sherif, social worker at the Social
Welfare Home for Women in Tajoura, Tripoli, May 4, 2005.